Ave has lost the recipe for success

The Ave group of ex-shareholders of the 36.6 network Vladimir Kintsurashvili and Ivan Saganelidze had difficulties with settlements with creditors. The company that operated the pharmacy chain is facing bankruptcy, and the group’s distributor has been placed under surveillance. Against this background, the Ave network has already been reduced from more than 40 to 13 pharmacies, but so far continues to operate under the control of other structures.

The Moscow Arbitration Court imposed supervision on the distributor Organic-Pharmacy, which is part of the Ave group of the former shareholders of the 36.6 chain Vladimir Kintsurashvili and Ivan Saganelidze. The decision is published in the files of cases. The applicant was Castelo LLC, a supplier of pharmaceutical products, to which Organic-Pharmacy owed 4.7 million rubles.

In 2018, Vladimir Kintsurashvili and Ivan Saganelidze withdrew from the shareholders and managers of the 36.6 chain, taking about 25 pharmacies in Moscow, which they began to develop in a premium format under the Ave brand. Organic-Pharmacy was the main distributor of the chain. In 2021, Organic-Pharmacy’s revenue exceeded 2 billion rubles, at the same time, apparently, the distributor’s relations with suppliers worsened. In 2021, counterparties filed 38 lawsuits against Organic-Pharmacy and recovered 105 million rubles. debt, since the beginning of this year, about 20 claims have been filed in the amount of more than 47 million rubles. Against this background, at the end of 2021, Vladimir Kintsurashvili and Ivan Saganelidze withdrew from the founders of Organic Pharmacy, and Anvar Zaidulin became the owner of the company, follows from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities. In the Ave group, they did not answer Kommersant’s questions.

The interim manager of Organic-Pharmacy, Nikolai Mikushin, says that representatives of Organic-Pharmacy do not get in touch and do not transfer documents. In his opinion, the change in ownership, as well as the legal address, may be related to the intention of the beneficiaries to avoid paying off creditors. In addition to Castelo, nine other companies are trying to join the register of creditors of Organic-Pharmacy. Among them are structures associated with the former owners of Organic-Pharmacy, for example, Sky Organic, which is 50% owned by Vinko-Soft founded by Vladimir Kintsurashvili, as well as LLC A.v.e, created by him in September 2021 .

It is Ave LLC that has now received a license for Ave pharmacies in Moscow and the Moscow region, most of which coincide with the pharmacies from the license of the previously operating MRFC+ network. In relation to MRFC+, since October 2021, a bankruptcy petition is also being considered from TD Perekrestok JSC, which is part of the X5 Group, to which the company owes rent. MRFC+ also changed its owner in February of this year. Instead of the former member of the board of directors of “36.6” Marina Miklina, Arzu Mammadov became it, follows from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities. According to RNC Pharma, at the beginning of 2022, the Ave network included 41 pharmacies in Moscow and the Moscow region, and six months later it was reduced to 16 outlets. As of September 12, only 13 pharmacies can order goods on the Ave website.

According to Kommersant’s interlocutor in the pharmaceutical market, owners need to distance themselves from companies that owe suppliers in order to receive goods. In the mid-2010s, a similar scheme was used with the Oriola distributor, which was bought out by 36.6 under the leadership of Vladimir Kintsurashvili from the Finnish Oriola KD, he recalls. The distributor was renamed, then divided into three structures, which were transferred to a third-party individual and re-registered, Vademecum wrote.

Oleg Khmelevsky, a lawyer at the A1 Bar Association, says that the formal transfer of shares or stakes in a company to another person shortly before bankruptcy is one of the ways to hide property from creditors. Nevertheless, lenders seek to bring the real beneficiaries who led the companies during the period of financial problems to subsidiary liability, adds Viktoria Tikhonova, senior lawyer for bankruptcy projects at Vegas Lex.

Polina Gritsenko